What's a ski tour without grand plans, smashed on the cliff-riddled shores of unexplored terrain?
I met with Alisa in Issaquah for an exploratory tour up Rampart Ridge, with an eye toward continuing on through the Rampart Lakes area and skiing down into Gold Creek north of Alta. After stopping at the cache to get radios and check in (this was a Cascade Backcountry patrol day), we headed up the ridge from the Gold Creek sno-park, looking at a long day.
Not so long, turns out. Conditions in the forest were very firm, so we used our ski crampons all day and it was still slow-ish going. Once we gained the ridge and headed up toward Gold Lake, we discovered that the ideal route does not go over the crest of the ridge -- cliff walls everywhere.
By this time, it was getting late (at least, late enough that another 9 miles, including the long ski out Gold Creek, didn't seem appealing). We found a nice west-facing slope to drop down toward Gold Creek and traversed down and left to get to non-cliff terrain, eventually making our way down via glades and aggressive side-slipping.
Pit results at 4000, 31 degree west-facing slope: 54" to ground; 1.5" breakable crust above 4" finger, above thin ice lense at 6" (CT21, Q3 failure here); 12" of frozen rotten snow above a 2" (wow!) ice lense at 18", followed by another 12" of frozen rotten on top of 24" of consolidated 1 finger.
Everything except that 6" layer is bonded very well, though hot days could certainly thaw that rotten crap and bring that ice layer into play. Wind loading on west and southwest facing slopes resulted in easy slides and crack propagation (small local slopes off of road cuts, mostly).
Beautiful day to explore and get things right for next time! Thanks Alisa!
Sounds like a lovely winter's day. It was near 50 here today, almost summer-like. And what the hell is "CT21, Q3 failure"?
ReplyDeleteHeh -- sorry. CT21 refers to the number of times the isolated column of snow could be tapped before it fails. 1-10 are taps from the wrist, 11-20 are from the elbow, 21-30 are from the shoulder. So this test failed at 21, the first hit from the shoulder. Q3 refers to the quality of the release -- a Q1 (quality one) shear moves very quickly and has a clean sliding surface. Q2, Q3 are progressively slower/less clean in the way they move. Q3 is a sluggish shear with little to no movement.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I knew all that. That was just a test.
ReplyDeleteKidding ... but I do love knowing how that's done.
Heh -- thanks for keeping me on my toes.
ReplyDelete